nuclear-news

Bellona joins other anti nuclear non profit groups – no longer NGO, harassed by Russian govt

Two decades of legal harassment dissolve Bellona Murmansk as a Russian NGO – but it will continue its work, Bellona,  October 12, 2015 by Charles Digges Twenty years ago this month, Bellona’s still nascent offices in Murmansk were raided by the FSB, the successor organization to the Soviet KGB, setting in motion a legal Rube Goldberg machine that led to treason allegations against the Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin, and charges against the Bellona itself.

In those two decades, Nikitin beat his espionage wrap, and Bellona Murmansk became a vital force in attracting international funding for dismantling Russia’s nuclear naval legacy and spearheading renewable energy efforts on Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

But, the group again faces a vague future after it was declared in March to be a “foreign agent” by Russia’s Justice Ministry, showing that official spy-mania directed against non-profit groups demanding transparency on nuclear and environmental issues is again on an upswing.

On Monday, it surfaced that the group would be forced to stop operating as an NGO, and group chairman Andrei Zolotkov confirmed that Bellona Murmansk was “at a cross roads” and that its eventual liquidation as a non-profit had been announced as early as April.

Bellona Executive Director Nils Bøhmer confirmed Monday that as of Monday Bellona Murmansk is no longer a Russian non-profit, but would still continue its present functions under different auspices.

“Bellona Murmansk will continue its work under a different kind of bureaucratic structure that will free it from the yoke of being branded a foreign agent,” said Bøhmer. “It is yet another challenge the group has had to face, but we are again rising above it and we are still doing the hard work of enumerating radiation threats in an atmosphere that is hardly conducive to transparency.”

Uncertainty is a familiar cloud under which the group has has always operated and Zolotkov was quick to point out that Monday’s developments were not a surprise.

The first ransacking by the FSB………

It was the first of hundreds of such interrogations that would last the entire five years his case, until he was finally acquitted of espionage charges by the Russia’s constitutional court in 2000 – making him the first person ever to beat KGB-levied espionage accusations.

When Nikitin returned home after that first interrogation, his wife was cleaning up the ransacking the agents had subjected the apartment to. The search had turned up documents relative to the Bellona report and had been confiscated as evidence.

That morning, Nilsen received a call from a Murmansk-based journalist who told him Bellona Murmansk’s office had been turned inside out by the FSB……….

What’s next?

With Bellona Murmansk’s liquidation as an NGO becoming official on Monday, it’s clear that Russian authorities bear long-running resentments when it comes to organizations working to improve the country’s nuclear and radiation safety.

Another recent victim of this drive is Nadezhda Kutepova, and her anti-nuclear NGO in the close nuclear town of Ozersk. Once her organization, Planet of Hopes, was placed on the foreign agent list in July, she fled for political asylum in France as it became clear the FSB was drawing up treason charges against her. She liquidated her group late last month.

In June 2014, the anti-nuclear group Ecodefense was tarred as a foreign agent for protesting the construction of the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant. Its co-chair, Vladimir Slivyak, has said his group has for over a year ignored mounting fines for refusing to register as a foreign agentbecause his group doesn’t act as one.

That’s an across-board-complaint issued by most of the 94 NGO’s currently listed as foreign agents by the Justice Ministry, and Anna Kireeva of Bellona Murmansk is no exception.

“We have never been working as foreign agents, and were never involved in political activity. But it is absolutely impossible to operate as a foreign agent NGO in Russia,” she said in an interview. “People who say ‘register as a foreign agent and continue working’ have no idea what they’re talking about,” she said, adding: “That is why Bellona Murmansk as a ‘Russian NGO fulfilling function of a foreign agent’ was closed. But Bellona will continue to be present in Murmansk.” http://bellona.org/news/russian-human-rights-issues/russian-ngo-law/2015-10-two-decades-of-legal-harassment-dissolve-bellona-murmansk-as-a-russian-ngo-but-it-will-continue-its-work

October 26, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, Russia